Welcome to Democracy Ish. I am Danielle Moody.

And we are very excited to welcome to Democracy Ish for the first time.

A brilliant author, tweeter, and author of the new book, The Persuaders,

at the front lines of the fight for hearts, minds, and democracy.

Anand Girdardas.

And Anand, a pleasure for you to finally join us.

You are a fellow South Asian man who I heard is in his 40s now and still has retained his hair.

So you and me are both unicorns among our people.

For those of you who don't know, Anand's hair is top shelf.

Mahshallah, as we say, no evil eye.

I'm bottom shelf.

He is way more stylish than me.

And it's proof that you can become a Desi uncle and still be cool.

If you ever had doubts, look to Anand and his frequent appearances on MSNBC.

And in addition to the persuaders, which we're going to talk about,

you all have to pick up his book, Winners Take All, the Elite Shraid of Changing the World

that came out a couple years ago, and also true American murder and mercy in Texas.

And Anand, we are recording this delightful conversation about three days before, four days

before the consequential 22 midterms.

And your book, the one that you just came out with, it's about interviewing those individuals,

politicians, activists, communicators, who are at the front lines fighting for the hearts

and minds to save our fledgling democracy, right?

...